In 1989, an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale struck northern California, killing 63 people and causing $6 billion worth of damage.

In 1992, Japanese exchange student Yoshi Hattori was fatally shot by Rodney Peairs in Baton Rouge, La., after Hattori and his American host mistakenly knocked on Peairs' door while looking for a Halloween party. (Peairs was acquitted of manslaughter, but in a civil trial was ordered to pay more than $650,000 to Hattori's family.)

Ten years ago: Ira Einhorn, the '70s hippie guru who'd fled to Europe after being charged with murder, was convicted in Philadelphia of killing his girlfriend, Holly Maddux, and stuffing her corpse in his closet a quarter-century earlier. (Einhorn was later sentenced to life without parole.)

Five years ago: President George W. Bush, raising Beijing's ire, presented the Dalai Lama with the Congressional Gold Medal and urged Chinese leaders to welcome the monk to Beijing. Comedian Joey Bishop, the last of Sinatra's Rat Pack, died in Newport Beach, Calif., at age 89. Singer Teresa Brewer died in New Rochelle, N.Y., at age 76.

One year ago: Rolling through small Southern towns in a campaign-style bus, President Barack Obama pressed lawmakers back in Washington to start taking up pieces of his rejected jobs bill and mocked the Republicans who had shot it down in toto. Financier Carl Lindner Jr., who used his experience running the family dairy store to build a business empire whose reach included baseball, banks and bananas, died at age 92.